CONIFERS 



23 



nearly oval, compressed, acute at the apex, ' long, with a thin oblique shell, their 

 wings broadest at the middle, gradually narrowed to the ends, 1^' long, ' wide. 



A tree, usually about 20 high, with a trunk a foot in diameter, and often fruitful 

 when only 4 or 5 tall ; occasionally growing to the height of 80-100, with a 

 trunk 2 thick, and frequently divided above the middle into two ascending stems, 

 slender branches arranged in regular whorls while the tree is young, and in old age 

 forming a narrow round-topped straggling head of sparse thin foliage, and slender 

 dark orange-brown branchlets growing darker during their second season. Bark of 

 young stems and branches thin, smooth, pale brown, becoming at the base of old 

 trunks \'-% thick and dark brown often tinged with purple, slightly and irregularly 

 divided by shallow fissures and broken into large loose scales. Wood light, soft, 

 not strong, brittle, coarse-grained, light brown, with thick sapwood sometimes 

 slightly tinged with red. 



Distribution. Dry mountain slopes from the valley of the Mackenzie River in 

 Oregon over the mountains of southwestern Oregon, where it is most abundant and 

 grows to its largest size, often forming pure forests over large areas, southward 

 along the western slopes of the Cascade Mountains, the cross ranges of northern 

 California, the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada, and over the California coast 

 ranges from Santa Cruz to the southern slopes of the San Bernardino Mountains, 

 where it is abundant up to elevations of 4000 above the sea. 



M--M- Cones very large, their scales prolonged into stout straight or curved spines. 



23. Pinus Sabiniana, Dougl. Digger Pine. Bull Pine. 



Leaves stout, flexible, pendant, pale blue-green, marked on each face with numer- 

 ous rows of pale stomata, 8'-12' long, deciduous usually in their third and fourth 

 years. Flowers: staminate yellow; pistillate on stout peduncles, dark purple. 

 Fruit oblong-ovate, 

 full and rounded at 

 the base, pointed, be- 

 coming light reddish 

 brown, 6'-10' long, 

 long-stalked, pendu- 

 lous, with scales nar- 

 rowed into promi- 

 nent flattened knobs 

 erect or incurved 

 above the middle of 

 the cone, strongly re- 

 flexed below, and 

 armed with short 

 sharp hooks and 

 spur-like incurved 

 spines ; seeds full 



and rounded below, somewhat compressed toward the apex, ' long, ' wide, dark 

 brown or nearly black, with a thick hard shell, encircled by their wings much thick- 

 ened on the inner rim, obliquely rounded at the broad apex and about ^ f longer 

 than the seeds. 



A tree, usually 40-50 but occasionally 80 high, with a trunk 3-4 in diame- 



